What is Traditional Animation

Traditional animation, (or classical animation, cel animation or hand-drawn animation), is one of the earlier styles of animation, the animator draws every frame to create the animation sequence. This is how it was done in the days of classic Disney and Warner Bros Animation. Consecutive drawings screened instantly one after another to create the illusion of movement.

2D animation is a complex process that takes a lot of time and effort. The main steps that it takes to make a 2D animation are as follows: Storyboard, voice recording, animatic, designing and timing, layout, Animation etc.

In traditional animation, animators draw images on a transparent sheet of paper placed on a peg using a colored pencil, one frame or cel at the time. Animators normally test animations with very rough and unfinished drawings to measure how many frames are necessary to achieve the action. The animation process of traditional animation can be long and expensive. Once the clean-up and the in-between drawings are complete, the production would move on to photographing each individual frame. Today, though, traditional animation can be done on a computer using a tablet which eliminates the need for individual photographs of each frame.